Just how effed up do things have to get?

I have a friend named Pete. Actually, his name isn’t Pete at all. It’s Albert. But I’ve decided to call him Pete in order to protect his identity. It’ll be a bit like Superman’s glasses. We all like those. Glasses make people look smarter. That’s why I wear mine. Not bumping into things is just the icing on the cake.

Aaanyways…

Pete has a dog named Little. That’s his actual name. There’s no point in trying to protect Little’s identity, because dogs don’t wear glasses. Little is an English mastiff of about 250 pounds. He does not live up to his name. There are three things that Little love most in this world; his daddy (Pete), pillow stuffing and visitors. When his beloved master leaves the house to go to work as a nightshift security guard at Really Big Company, the little darling aims all his attention towards the sofa cushions and their soft, snowy white innards.

Because of this, Clever Dogowner Pete set up a camera in his living room, so that he could keep an eye on the baby from his laptop computer. So now, although he wasn’t able to stop his Little Pumpkin from tearing the Super Recliner Sofa to pieces, he could at least witness the murder. Sure enough, when the time came go about his security guard business, Sweetie-Pie was digging in with great zest.

When he returned to his laptop 20 minutes later, the sofa looked like Einstein’s head. But what truly caught Pete’s attention, was the unkempt young man sitting in it, holding his television set in his lap. Seems that during his away-time, the house had been burgled. Little had thought “Yay! Visitors!” and it wasn’t until the fella tried to leave through the window where he entered, that the doggie smelled a rat, thus planting said visitor in what was left of the sofa and keeping him there. Being a fairly bright young man, Pete naturally called our equivalent of 911.

The operator was sad to inform Pete that nobody would be able to come by his house until later that morning, since he was the only officer working at the station that night, and he most certainly coulnd’t deal with the situation alone, because it might be dangerous. Naturally, Pete was slightly ticked off, seeing how he was supposed to go home in less than an hour and the situation might just happen to be a little dangerous for him, as well. Not to mention for Doggie-Woggie, but he didn’t say that. Finally, the policeman called a couple of off-duty officers and they took the burglar away.

Apparently, Little wasn’t all that keen to let them into the house. But I digress…

The burglar was placed in a jail cell where he gave a full confession of that night’s events. Right down to how he had taken a leak in someone’s birdbath... Eight hours later, he was released due to lack of evidence.

Insane as it sounds, this is not even an unusual story. I know two more people just in my own social circle that has experienced pretty much the same things, with a few variations to the plot here and there. Granted, we’ve just had the most serious financial crisis since the great depression, but still… Our particular corner of the world has only been slightly affected by this. It’s also one of the few bits on the globe that actually makes money – a lot of money – rather than sustaining themselves on loans. You’d think we could stick enough cops in the station to answer a 911 call. I also can’t help thinking that it must be frustrating to become a police officer and find that you’re not able to do your job. Maybe that’s why the flight of cops from the police force to private security companies, is now considered to be one of the major national problems that politicians get off on talking about. Not that sitting around in a tv studio, chatting about it while wondering if the cameras are capturing you from your good side, is helping the situation all that much.

It’s a helluva creepy though that our 911 should work a bit in the same way that Pete’s camera did. “No, we can’t really help you, but we’d be more than willing to witness you being minced up by the psychotic axe murderer, ma’am.”

Mad As Hell! Kinetic Typography from Aaron Leming on Vimeo.